Bad Bunny just made his best Adidas sneakers, and it’s not even close. His latest shoe, the Adidas San Juan, which is a take on the Gazelle and was previewed on social media by his creative director, Janthony Oliveras, is a trip back in time through Adidas’ archive.
The shoe isn’t the first Gazelle model that’s been connected to Bad Bunny—there’s a “Benito” pair, which is his given name. But I think the latest one trumps that model for the Puerto Rican star. The San Juan isn’t just a tie back to Bad Bunny’s heritage, but also to a long legacy of Adidas shoes named after cities across the globe.
The Bad Bunny x Adidas Gazelle San Juan sneakers will retail for $140 and are releasing on June 23 at A Ma Maniere, Concepts, Kith, Packer, Sneaker Politics, UNDFTD, Private Sneakers, Takout, Soleplay, Premium Goods, Sneaker Junkies, and Just for Sports.
The shoes themselves aren’t a true Gazelle. All they share in common with the model is the Gazelle Indoor sole on bottom. The San Juans are made of multiple shades of light blue, the same color as Adidas’ boxes and a Pantone that’s quite common in the brand’s ‘70s and ‘80s catalog. There are white Stripes on them, just like on the boxes and shoes of old. It takes you back to the original Gazelle, which was first made only in red/white and blue/white. It’s also reminiscent of the Adidas SL 72. But one of the closest reference points could be a shoe like the Adidas Athens, a model from the ‘60s that’s blue with white stripes and a gum sole.
That sneaker is also a good reference point to talk about the San Juan, because, like the name implies, it’s named after Athens, Greece. The Athens was first launched in 1968 to pay homage to the birthplace of the Olympics, although the games took place in Mexico City that year. To go even further back in Adidas’ history, there’s a white sneaker with blue stripes, the Rom, which came out in 1959 to celebrate the 1960s Olympics in Rome, Italy.
Since then there have been a whole host of City Series shoes, some more popular than others. There’s Dublin. The Amsterdam. Shoes for Manchester, England. Others for Milan, Blackburn, Stockholm, Malmo, London, Torino, Glasgow, Hamburg, Birmingham, Cardiff, Oslo, San Francisco. Koln, Berlin, Wien, Lyon, Paris, Bern, Boston, New York, Montreal. Some thought Adidas was going to close out the City Series shoes last year when they finally made a shoe for Herzogenaurach, the birthplace of the brand.
Adidas has celebrated Caribbean heritage in the past with shoes like the Jamaica, Trinidad, and Havana.
In 2020, before the pandemic hit, I was going to have a chance to make my own friends-and-family Adidas shoe. And it was going to be the Adidas Jersey City, my own spin on the City Series. Sadly, it got scrapped due to the strains that Covid-19 put on the brand’s supply chain.
Adidas says the Bad Bunny San Juan is inspired by the colors of the city, the cobblestones of the city, the sea and the beach. It’s meant to represent the identity of Puerto Rico through a shoe.
The shoe also has a twisted T-toe look to give it flare for Bad Bunny, a design language that is similar to the wiggly upper of his Response CL shoe from 2023.
Bad Bunny has also done a puffy, skateboarding-like version of the Forum Low in 2021 and reworked the Campus in 2023 with a rubber mudguard that rises out of the midsole. Bad Bunny and Adidas have been working together since 2021 and have done more than a dozen shoes at this point.
Since then, Bad Bunny’s profile has only risen. He’s gone from being one of the biggest stars in the Latin world to one of the biggest entertainers in the entire world. He’s done pay-per-view events with the WWE in Puerto Rico, where he brawled with Damian Priest. Had a big role in the movie Bullet Train with Brad Pitt. And dated Kendall Jenner.
But through all of that, he hasn’t lost track of his roots. And this shoe is a perfect example of that. You’d almost have to expect a special release for the Gazelle in Puerto Rico, as Bad Bunny’s done in the past on some of his earlier shoes. Even without that, Bad Bunny's managed to make a legitimate connection between San Juan, Adidas, Herzogenaurach, and the world.
